New Delhi will restrict the use of private vehicles for a week in a bid to offer residents some respite from the toxic smog choking the megacity, authorities announced yesterday.

A senior Chinese diplomat has urged Myanmar to “cooperate” in maintaining stability on their shared border, Beijing said yesterday, after armed groups fighting the junta seized a strategic trading outpost.

Blizzards sweeping through central Mongolia since last Friday have killed eight and left one missing, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing Mongolian emergency management authorities.

Authorities in India’s smog-ridden capital New Delhi yesterday extended an emergency schools closure by a week, with no signs of improvement in the megacity’s choking levels of pollution.

Rescue workers in Nepal began digging through the rubble of collapsed houses with their bare hands on Saturday, searching for survivors after the country’s worst earthquake in eight years killed 157 people and shook buildings as far away as New Delhi.

Rescue workers in Nepal began digging through the rubble of collapsed houses with their bare hands on Saturday, searching for survivors after the country's worst earthquake in eight years killed 157 people and shook buildings as far away as New Delhi

Pakistan's military said its forces killed nine armed men who attacked an air force training base on Saturday, with a group affiliated with the Pakistan Taliban claiming responsibility

At least 132 people were killed in an overnight earthquake that struck a remote pocket of Nepal, officials said Saturday, as security forces rushed to assist with rescue efforts

A bomb blast targeting a Pakistan police van in northwestern Pakistan yesterday killed five civilians and wounded 21 people, officials said.

India’s capital New Delhi was wrapped in a thick layer of toxic haze yesterday and some schools were ordered closed as the air quality index (AQI) plummeted to the “severe” category. 

An alliance of Myanmar ethnic minority groups said it made more gains in its offensive against the ruling junta yesterday, with the regime vowing it would hit back at the biggest military challenge it has faced since it seized power.

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal last night at 23:47 (local time), according to its National Seismological Centre.

Bhutan said yesterday it would stage only the fourth general election in its history in January, with the incoming prime minister expected to prioritise happiness on par with the economy.

World's most polluted city again

Pakistan will hold delayed national elections on February 8 next year, the electoral commission said yesterday, as the country grapples with overlapping political, economic and security crises.

Myanmar’s military has lost control of a strategic northern town on the Chinese border following days of clashes with three ethnic armed groups, a junta spokesman said. “Government, administrative organisations and security organisations are no longer present” in Chinshwehaw town, which borders China’s Yunnan province,

India’s cyber security unit is investigating allegations by opposition politicians of attempted phone tapping after they reported receiving Apple iPhone warnings of “state-sponsored attackers”, media reported yesterday.

China said yesterday its troops were “on constant high alert” after US and Canadian warships passed through the Taiwan Strait, their second joint passage in two months.

India's cyber security agency is investigating complaints of mobile phone hacking by senior opposition politicians who reported receiving warning messages from Apple AAPL.O, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said

More than 40 Chinese warplanes were detected around Taiwan in a day, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry said yesterday.